Civi GB

A fric a n C h a t t e l E n s la v e m e n t 1/2

Source: Abolition ! The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British Colonies, Richard S. Reddie. Chapter 3.

B EGINNING OF SLAVE TR ADING FOR E NGLAND ! England did not initiate the trade, but reaped the most benefits from it. ! Britain became one of the world’s leading slave-trading nation. ! John Hawpkins (Plymouth-born merchant): 1st Englishman who successfully traded in Africans. In 1562, raid in Sierra Leone, and seized 300 Africans. First attempts to break Portuguese monopoly --> England did not possess any colonies in the Americas during 16th century. What Hawkins did was sell the Africans to Portuguese. He exchanged them in the Caribbean islands, and returned to E with a full shipload of sugar and goods. --> triangular trade. Hawkins is credited as the man who initiated this. ! At first Quenn Elizabeth was appalled at Hawkins’ activities, but she soon changed her mind & provided him with a ship. Hawkins used kidnapping to get ‘human cargo’ from Africa. ! At the time of Hawkins’ 2nd & 3rd expedition, he met resistance from Africans + Spanish attacked him. ! He was helped by his cousin, Francis Drake, who fought agst the Spanish in 1588, and who is now much more famous. ! Result of Hawkins’ 3 triangular trade voyages is normalization of African slave trading among the E. ! At the time, E was unfamiliar with institutionalized slavery (unlike Spain & Portugal) --> preferred serfdom, other forms of controlled labor to slavery. ! Slavery was agst the E belief in liberty and justice (enshrined in the Magna Carta). ! But Elizabeth, seeing how lucrative a business it was for Spain, decided to grant 10-year rights to London merchants to trade on the West-African coast. But these merchants did not trade in human beings, they sought to do commerce with Africans.

! At first, England failed to enter the slave trade because they did not possess any colonies in the West Indies: ==> it meant selling slaves to their European rivals. ! But when they did, all the qualms (scrupules) of people who said that England did not deal with slave trading were ignored.

S LAVERY IN A FRICA ! Slavery was already in the picture in Africa before the TST began: there was the TransSaharan ST by Muslims, and enslavement was used in African societies as a deterrent and a punishment for criminal activities. They also made slaves of those captured in wars btw rival kingdoms and clans. But indigenous enslavement afforded Africans dignity, respect etc. They were not treaded as commodities or possessions, but as human beings. ! Africans went on slave-raiding expeditions in order to obtain enslaved Africans for Europeans. ! Slave raids took place in the interior regions of Africa. ! Other people around that time led expeditions: Thomas Windham, John Lok. ! By the 17th c, Europeans had slaves forts littering the coastal areas of West Africa, forts that became the center of the ST. It was here that European agents arranged meetings with numerous African kings and chiefs to negotiate prices and agree on nbs of slaves. A system of exchange btw African kings and Europeans. ! African kings used an assortment of English firearms to attack neighboring kingdoms in order to enslave their kingdom. (complicity debate). ! The end of the TST (1807) meant for African kings the end of their lucrative business. ! Apparently, African kings did not realize that slavery in the Americas was not similar at all to their indigenous version. ! Moreover, at the time for Africans, there was no notion of race, ==>tly, they did not feel betrayed by their own people. ! John Newton: slave trader turned Anglican preacher (slave-captain-turned-clergyman). ! Issue of the detrimental effect the TST was having on Africa.

! Increasing nb of wars in the continent, the TST flooded the continent with arms and alcohol. ! The TST crippled the traditional African industries (weaving, wood & metal work, farming, fishing).

M IDDLE P ASSAGE : ! Around 10 million Africans were forcibly taken to the Americas btw 16th & 19th century. ! Conditions on board: • Mortality rate for an average journey from Africa to Americas: 1520% • A slaver: a ship (négrier) • Each African was considered an investment that would be cashed in on arrival; the amount of cash was dependent on their physical condition and the overall price at the markets. ! Zong incident: slaver in the 1780s; its captain, believing that some of the Africans on board would not make the Caribbean alive, used the lack of water as an excuse to jettison sick or dying Africans so that he could make an insurance claim.

I N THE A MERICAS ! Once arrived in the Americas, Africans were subject to sale at auctions. ! It was surprising that there were not so many slaves uprisings, considering the fact that Africans outnumbered whites by as many as 50 to 1. ! Thomas Clarkson, abolitionist: British-born Anglican deacon. He never went to the Americas to witness the abuses agst Africans, but he did not really have to, since many Africans came to Britain with their masters, bearing the scars of their mistreatments. ! In the colonies, a color-coded sty: whites > brown > blacks (working in master’s big house > working in the fields).